In 24 hours, Mumbai airport handles 969 flights; sets new world record

Nov 26, 2017

Creating a new world record for single-runway operations, Mumbai airport handled 969 take-offs and landings in 24 hours on Friday. It broke its own record of 935, said a Mumbai International Airport Ltd spokesperson (MIAL).

Mega cities such as New York, London, Dubai and Delhi have airports with two or more runways that operate simultaneously. Though Mumbai has two runways, they criss-cross each other, so only one runway is used at a time. Technically this puts Mumbai in the single-runway airport category. So it's in the league of busy single-runway secondary airports of cities like London (Gatwick, Stansted airports), Istanbul (Sabiha Gokcen airport) and major airports of smaller cities like San Diego (US), Fukuoka (Japan) and Xiamen (China).

Mumbai handles over 900 airline flights per day. The record high air traffic movement (take-offs and landings) happen on days when the number of unscheduled flights-charter aircraft, private aircraft-go up, like it did on Friday. These flights are banned during the morning and evening peak hours, so when the load goes up during non-peak hours, new records are set. "We hope to cross 1,000 aircraft movements per day soon,'' the MIAL official said.

In civil aviation, the norm is to record time in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, same as GMT) and Indian Standard Time is five-and-a-half hours ahead of UTC. The feat was achieved from 5.30am on Friday to 5.30am on Saturday.

Does anyone know the difference in hourly airline movements between LGW and BOM? I was wondering if BOM could squeeze more takeoffs/landings. Toking at it per day, doesn't take into account that LGW is not a 24 hour airport.

Yes, a good point for comparison. LGA in 2016 handled about 370,000 flights which is about 1013 flights per day ( hours ? ) and a total of 30 M passengers most of which were domestic. Its runways are tiny, two intersecting at 90 degree and only 7000 ft long. BOM is way ahead of LGA. More LGA story in Wikipedia.org._________________Sabya99

Does anyone know the difference in hourly airline movements between LGW and BOM? I was wondering if BOM could squeeze more takeoffs/landings. Toking at it per day, doesn't take into account that LGW is not a 24 hour airport.

LGW does not see as many widebodies as BOM does. Widebodies tend to reduce the frequency of departures due to wider separation standards.

I reckon BOM would leave LGW behind if it got only as many widebodies that LGW does._________________I don't know which is the more pampered bunch : AI's widebodies (the aunties) or Jet's widebodies (the planes).
-Jasepl

Mumbai airport, the busiest single-runway airport in the world, broke its own record when it handled 980 arrivals and landings in 24 hours on January 20. "Before this, on December 6, the airport had landed 974 flights," said a Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd spokesperson. Though India's second largest airport has the record breaking numbers, Gatwick airport, UK's second largest airport, is still the most efficient single-runway airport in the world.

According to statistics from UK's Airport Coordination Ltd, Gatwick single runway declared an aircraft handling capacity of 870 flight movements per day for summer 2018. But, unlike Mumbai airport, which is functional 24 hours a day, Gatwick handles most of its flights in the 19 hours between 5am and midnight because of night time restrictions in force since 1971.

"The most important difference between Gatwick and Mumbai is the environment the two airports are set in," says a senior air traffic controller from Mumbai.

"Mumbai airport functions in a space-starved, infrastructure-constrained environment, unlike any other. More flights can't be added onto Mumbai's single runway without a holistic approach that takes into account the ground realities, India's regulatory framework, human factors etc," he added. The ground realties of the two airports are in stark contrast. London is served by four airports—Heathrow the largest followed by Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. Heathrow has two simultaneously operational runways and the rest each have one, making it a total of five available runways for London-bound flights. Mumbai, on the other hand, is served by only one airport (Juhu airport runway cannot handle airline flights).

Mumbai airport, the busiest single-runway airport in the world, broke its own record when it handled 980 arrivals and landings in 24 hours on January 20. "Before this, on December 6, the airport had landed 974 flights," said a Mumbai International Airport Pvt Ltd spokesperson. Though India's second largest airport has the record breaking numbers, Gatwick airport, UK's second largest airport, is still the most efficient single-runway airport in the world.

According to statistics from UK's Airport Coordination Ltd, Gatwick single runway declared an aircraft handling capacity of 870 flight movements per day for summer 2018. But, unlike Mumbai airport, which is functional 24 hours a day, Gatwick handles most of its flights in the 19 hours between 5am and midnight because of night time restrictions in force since 1971.

"The most important difference between Gatwick and Mumbai is the environment the two airports are set in," says a senior air traffic controller from Mumbai.

"Mumbai airport functions in a space-starved, infrastructure-constrained environment, unlike any other. More flights can't be added onto Mumbai's single runway without a holistic approach that takes into account the ground realities, India's regulatory framework, human factors etc," he added. The ground realties of the two airports are in stark contrast. London is served by four airports—Heathrow the largest followed by Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. Heathrow has two simultaneously operational runways and the rest each have one, making it a total of five available runways for London-bound flights. Mumbai, on the other hand, is served by only one airport (Juhu airport runway cannot handle airline flights).

Airlines need to start upguaging all the narrowbodies on the busy domestic routes : BOM - DEL, BOM -BLR , BOM - AMD, BOM - HYD and BOM - MAA to widebodies similar to what the Japanese airlines do on domestic routes. That is the only way to increase passenger capacity at BOM

Airlines need to start upguaging all the narrowbodies on the busy domestic routes : BOM - DEL, BOM -BLR , BOM - AMD, BOM - HYD and BOM - MAA to widebodies similar to what the Japanese airlines do on domestic routes. That is the only way to increase passenger capacity at BOM

Yes, its about time! Pre-merger, AI used to do with their Jumbos between DEL - BOM. No reason, why not now. They can use their remaining B744 on domestic routes.

Flights in and out of BOM seem to get consistently delayed. Every one of my almost 10 flights in and out of BOM so far this year was delayed (all domestic, mostly to BLR), the best one was a 40 minutes delay, the worst 3 hours.

Is this due to the main runway getting closed for routine maintenance? Or is this what we should expect going forward?